Sunday, 23 August 2015

Friday night was the six-month anniversary of the evening when I popped the question and Alex Thaub said, "Yes," so we thought the occasion was worth marking with a good dinner at the same restaurant. The Terrace is where I popped the question in the first place. In the process of getting that set up, restaurateur Jorden Andrew became an interview subject and a friend.
Our reservation was for

dinner at the penthouse and it was a very elegant four-course meal with accompanying wines. The high point, of course, is the impeccable service from Jorden himself, overlooking the night-scape of Manhattan. It's a very easy experience with only a short learning curve. Animation menus are in the back of the chairs; Jorden passes you the menu, drinking glasses, and silverware and they're in your inventory. The table itself contains all the animations you need.

After four courses of perfect service, Jorden discreetly disappeared and Alex and I had a chance to explore the functions of the beautiful penthouse apartment with about four hours of privacy with which to do so. I was remarking that this is one instance when the Second Life necessity to furnish sparsely works with the design of the space; this is what such a penthouse would look like, I think, a small number of well-chosen pieces of furniture. I will merely say that the balcony is very

romantic but the bed itself is ... very very romantic, as is the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace.
I recommend contacting Jorden Andrew well in advance of your requirements to be sure you can have the experience you require. But if you have something to commemorate or celebrate, this is an excellent way to do it.Here's a SLURL for The Terrace, which will put you close to information and direct links to make reservations.

Monday, 17 August 2015

Last night Alex Thaub and I dropped in to RED for an hour of deep house music, some dancing, checking out the eye candy, and some friendly convo in the open channel. I've always liked Cupric Router's clubs, and Coop has become a friend. He and his associate Hotboy do a great job at making people feel welcome AND playing some pretty awesome tunage, particularly in the EDM and house genres. The clubs seem to attract a friendly group of people, quite mixed between English-speaking and Spanish/Portuguese-speaking, and with a healthy leavening of all different gender identities and sexual preferences -- and some of the hottest-looking guys on the grid. Definitely worth your time.
Coop was telling me a strange story last night; he asked me if I could make it a bit more public, and I'm happy to oblige. Apparently some random hater has created an av with a name very similar to Coop's, and also another av with a name very similar to an av that was Coop's former account, and is running these avs around ... perhaps hoping to be mistaken for the genuine article. I'm not sure of all the details but these two phonies were spotted acting like nitwits in a public sex venue. Coop wants the word to get out so that people will stop and think for a minute if they seem to see Cupric Router acting like a doofus in public. Check the creation date, which cannot be faked. If the person in question is about five days old, you have a faker on your hands.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself...

I'm becoming accustomed to people doing strange and childish things in Second Life, but honestly this takes the cake for the moment. I can't imagine quite why anyone would do this, but I'm building the picture in my mind of some maladjusted dork living in his mom's basement who has only a dim idea of the rather serious crime known in Canada as "personation". Nobody can stop you from saying stupid things about other people in Second Life (well, actually, I bless the twinned functions of "block" and "derender" daily, because they actually DO stop those things from coming to my notice); if you find people don't put up with it or you, well, it's still your right to make a fool of yourself in public. As the number of places you're allowed to go dwindles down, that's what you deserve. But this is moving into criminal territory, and it's a symptom of some pretty serious mental illness. Sweetie, whoever you are, check yourself before you wreck yourself, 'kay? Go back on the meds and give them a week or so to kick in before you sign in under a name that reflects your own reputation, not someone else's. And if you're going to get all pissy with another resident, try taking on someone who doesn't spend a considerable amount of time, energy, and cash altruistically creating interesting experiences for other people to enjoy. Trust me, it doesn't go over well.

Friday, 7 August 2015

As I mentioned a post or two ago, I recently read a plaintive blog post from a lady who had worked hard to cultivate a relationship with a designer; she blogged about the designer's products and the designer gave her free stuff about which to blog. But when she went into the hospital, even after preparing the designer for this, she got dumped. I'm still thinking there are better ways to arrange this relationship, if indeed is a relationship ... sounds a little hinky to me. Hmm, you mean that just entirely by coincidence you are raving about every single thing a particular designer has produced this year? Suuuuure...
I'm still in the mood to blog about interesting products in Second Life, if and when I discover them, and I'll pay for them myself, thanks just the same. That way I can say what I like about them and my readers might actually believe what I have to say. I don't know when the balance of power shifted from the blogger to the designer, but I think it might be time to flip the paradigm. People, if you want to be taken seriously as a fashion blogger, spend a year or two without sucking up for handouts; buy stuff that makes you look good and blog about it. Then when you develop a reputation for having personal style, smart designers will send you stuff hoping you'll blog about it. Be in charge and pay your own bar tab and you'll go a lot further.

The other day I saw the latest edition of l'Homme Magazine SL -- and congratulations on your first year anniversary, by the way, I intend to drop in to your Blue Party tomorrow if I can -- and saw an advertisement for some interesting men's hair from a company called No.Match (page 39/40). I tracked them down (the SLURL is here; I had to get quite clever to find them, so make sure you use this SLURL) and bought six pieces of hair. Then I tried it all on, fitted it, went to Kowloon (SLURL is here) and took pictures, and here's the results.

No.Match / No Fail

Now, of the six pieces of hair, I got two that I really like, two that are okay, and two that I will probably file away. (Strangely enough, the one that caught my eye in the first place in l'Homme Magazine SL is one of the ones that I'll probably file away, but it might be to your taste.) The first one that I really like is at the top of this post, called No Fail. It's short and messy, much like me in RL, and it has a really interesting shape cut into it. If I saw someone with this haircut in RL I would think that they had spent $200 and two hours with

No.Match / No Rest

a talented haircutter, and it would take 15 minutes every morning with product and appliances to get it to look like this. But for a couple of days now, this has been my go-to hair.
The drawback is that, like all the hair in this post, you have to wear a tattoo-layer hairbase. But the amazing part is that, at least for us gingers, the designers have very thoughtfully included some tattoo-layer beauty marks to go with my freckles. The marks look awesome, and it's not the designer's fault that I am always trying

No.Match / No End

to figure out just which five tattoo layers I can afford to wear. Here, it was either my new favourite beard or the beauty marks, and the beard won. Be warned
-- you will need to spend some time fitting this hair and re-sizing it and shifting it in tiny little increments until it's just right.
The next new hair I'm loving is No Rest, a shoulder-length hair that has that bedhead thing going on that I love so much (and that takes so much mudding paste in RL). It took me a while to figure out that it's slightly

No.Match / No Horizon

asymmetrical -- more full on one side than the other. Apparently I slept on it wrong, which happens. Great hairline, great looking from the back and sides, this is a real winner if you want to look like you haven't had a haircut in a while and you used a leave-in conditioner at the gym but forgot your blow-dryer. Which, actually, is kind of my personal style. This one is in the magazine and caught my eye.
There were two styles that I bought that are very similar, because, okay, I am fascinated with long hair even

No Horizon, with the haloing effect

though I rarely wear it. No End and No Horizon are almost the same, both about chest-length hair. When I see hair like this in a store, I go Ooooooooo and buy it, never remembering until I get it home that if you are a guy with big shoulders and pecs, the damn hair is going to poke through your body at some point and there's not much anyone can do about it until someone reinvents how gravity works in SL. I love wearing long hair with a business suit, indicating, you know, after this business meeting I'm going back to my

No.Match / No Attention

bowl of granola. But I don't feel like that very often and these are unlikely to get much use.
The other reason I won't be using these much is a strange one -- it's because the hair is beautifully designed and textured. There are little wispy bits of hair in attractive strands that come away from your hair, and it looks really natural and beautiful. This really is what long thick beautiful hair looks like. Unfortunately as a side effect there is a strange moire effect if you are standing in front of, say, the ocean. Which

No.Match / No Shelter

happens lots in SL, actually. This produces a weird haloed effect like -- well, you can see in the picture, it looks like what sometimes happens when you're wearing a foot alpha and standing on a dance-floor with flashing lights. There's a little brightness that is kind of disconcerting. So if you're buying this for a photo shoot, well, pick your spot carefully.
Finally there are two pieces of hair that I just had to have because they are so damn interesting, but honestly, I'll just never wear them. I'm not an
epicene fashion model type with single-digit body fat and too much guyliner, I don't live in a post-apocalyptic sim, and nobody is hiring me as a dress extra for The Matrix. So the waist-length dreads (No Attention) that I saw in the magazine were fascinating (especially in white-blond); gorgeous textures, beautiful look, super-realistic, you just want to reach out and touch them to get that kind of oily dry feeling that you get from great dreads. But they're not me; I'm not that guy. (I would have shaved my head in a fury about six months in.) And you have to stand very still in SL or else they go through your shoulders, arm, et cetera.
The other interesting hair that's going into storage is No Shelter, which I put into a folder marked "Updo". The funny thing is, there is a guy who goes to my RL gym who has this hair; I think he plays bass guitar in a local bar band, he's covered in tattoos, and he looks fierce, so I grabbed the hair, thinking "Yeah!" I do not feel fierce in this hair, I feel kind of like one of the Golden Girls going to a seniors' dance. This is my fault ... I just don't seem to have the style necessary to pull this off. It's really nicely designed; there's even a separate piece for bangs you attach or not, as you think appropriate. I expect this is what someone who has the long thick hair of No Horizon or No End does when they want to get their damn hair out of the way while they wash the dishes or shampoo the dog, or whatever. But it just didn't feel like me.
So, all things considered, I bet you'll find something at No.Match that will interest you. It's definitely not hair for everyone; you need a certain amount of "fuck you, I like my hair this way" to bring it off. But if you want to stand out and/or create an effect, it will be L$200 well spent. Yes, every hair you see here is L$200, cheap as borscht, and it usually comes with a HUD that, at least for the reds, lets you select among nine different shades and resize the hair. The designers are doing cutting-edge work, the hair looks like HAIR, and if it's you, it really will be you. Check it out.